


Bilgamesh

by Solstice0612



Series: Pueblito [2]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Post-Series, Summer of Stargate Big Bang Challenge 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 17:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11445762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solstice0612/pseuds/Solstice0612
Summary: Post-series AU. Janet Fraiser finds an ancient vessel orbiting around a black hole, with a cargo powerful enough to blow up the galaxy. Daniel Jackson wants to take it home to Earth. This is part of my Pueblito series but it is written as an independent story for the Reverse Big Bang. It was inspired by the gorgeous image made by Magnavox_23.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I am very grateful to my wonderful beta Topazowlet for her assistance. All mistakes are my own. Please, also note that I’m not an expert in Sumerian history or language. I loosely borrowed from the Epic of Gilgamesh and its surrounding history and language but don’t hold me to the facts.

                                                      

                                                      Image by Magnavox_23

  

1\. Janet

 

I become aware of my surroundings in my re-solidified body, the feeling of tingles now barely perceptible. Daniel and I hold the same position we had when we beamed over, with our backs towards each other and our weapons drawn. The sharp light beam of his P90 pierces the pitch-black space, revealing that we’ve arrived in a long, spacious corridor.

A flash of fear gives me goose bumps and I instinctively turn towards Daniel. I don’t really need to. I’ve been here before. I’m not lost. I know the way. We’re completely alone in the immense ship. But the memories of another reality alternate to this one, another dark corridor where I was once taken as Nirrti’s host intrude in my thoughts, uninvited. I remember the other Daniel dead at my feet, the glimmer of a gold device uncomprehendingly wrapped around my hand. The same hand I swore I would only use to heal people.

My fingers tremble when they reach for Daniel’s hand. I take a deep breath to push back the disorientation that sometimes comes when you switch realities. I’m safe now or as safe as one can be while traveling in space. In this reality Nirrti exists no more. She was killed long ago, and her alternate version that once took me as a host is nothing but a bad memory.

“Janet, are you okay?” Daniel asks, stepping protectively closer.

“Yeah. Just thinking about Nirrti.”

I try to focus on the task at hand. I holster my zat gun, turn on my flashlight, and begin to walk towards the storage room at the end of the long corridor with Daniel by my side. I feel his hand on my shoulder.

“How did she know about this ship?” he asks waving his light beam in the air. I know he’s just trying to make me feel better because we’ve already talked about all this. But I’m grateful, so I answer fully because it helps me keep ghosts in their proper perspective.

“Nirrti learned about this ship in our alternate reality. There, it was hidden by the gas clouds and the radiation of the Crab Nebula and was falling towards a black hole. You know that extreme gravity causes time dilation near the event horizon, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the ship was caught in the gravity well at the beginning of an explosion, like when you pause a movie when something begins to explode. The front of ship was still intact but the back was breaking apart and fire-balling. Nirrti noticed that the radiation coming from the explosion was off the charts and that piqued her curiosity.”

“About the black hole? We have seen black holes used as sources of power.”

“Not really. She believed the ship must had been carrying something truly powerful to make that kind of explosion. She had never seen a ship with that design before and searched in vain for others like it in this region of space. All she found was a quantum mirror in a planet in a nearby sector.”

“The one in Melia?”

“Exactly. Nirrti decided to use it for her search. And you know the rest. When she crossed over to this reality, she located this ship, still orbiting at a safe distance around the black hole and with enough ZPMs in storage to make one hell of an explosion.”

“How many ZPMs did she take?”

“Only a few. She didn’t trust anyone in her reality, so she came back for more power modules as needed.”

“So when the Tok’ra captured Nirrti near Melia, what happened to the ZPM she was carrying?”

“I guess it’s floating somewhere in space. Nirrti ejected it when she felt cornered. I don’t think the Tok’ra ever realized what her plans were.” I know I don’t sound reassuring so Daniel frowns, probably realizing a possible wrinkle in our mission. I’ve heard the Tok’ra have been complicated allies.

“Did you tell them about this ship when they interrogated you?” asks Daniel as we move forward, our light beams lost in the darkness ahead.

“That was the one thing Nirrti and I ever had in common. We didn’t trust anyone with all this power.”

“Jack and I feel exactly the same. The fewer people who know about the ZPM cache, the better,” he murmurs, though there is nobody to hear us in the quiet darkness. “Are we getting close?”

“We are moving in the right direction.”

“I like the architectural design, geometric and austere but with nice organic patterns on the bulkheads,” says Daniel coming closer to the corridor walls to inspect their surface.

I point my light towards the flat panels. They look like woven textiles. “We’ll find a door on the right farther ahead,” I announce. “You’ll know that we are near because of the decorative reliefs.” Even though Daniel has a general idea of what’s ahead, I expect his socks will drop right down the deck when he sees the artwork.

Suddenly, our radios crackle startling us. “Sierra Golf One Niner, this is Odyssey.”

“This is Daniel. Go ahead, Mitchell.”

“Everything A-okay over there?”

“So far so good. We’re on a corridor moving towards the relief panels.”

“Copy that. Report back when you get there.”

“Will do,” Daniel says and pushes his radio down into his pocket.

We walk in silence for ten minutes and as the decoration begins to change and become more elaborate, Daniel’s pace picks up in speed. My shorter legs struggle to keep up with his longer strides until he suddenly stops in front of one of the exquisite sculptural panels imbedded in the bulkhead on both sides of the corridor. His jaw falls open and his eyes can’t get enough. Somehow, the wonder that animates his face makes him look very young.

The panel represents two tall figures, a bit larger than life, in long robes walking among lion-like creatures. The next relief shows two rivers with sinuous lines suggesting the subtle movement of running water. Further ahead, a powerful figure stands alone, his robe covered with coiling designs, and his eyes open in a stare forever blank. The unknown stories represented in the large sculptural panels draw Daniel’s attention like powerful magnets.

We walk through a narrative full of fascinating figures, who in turn silently witness our passing. Daniel stops frequently, filling his eyes with the beautiful reliefs and some interspersed panels showing long texts written in a language reminiscent of ancient Near Eastern cuneiform scripts I’ve seen in books.

He lovingly touches the edge of one of the panels, running his fingers over the uneven surface. “It looks like stone, but it feels like some kind of metal,” he says in a whispery voice. Oh boy, it’s total love at first sight.

“We’ll have to come back with better lighting and take good photos,” I say, trying to offer some hope. “Perhaps we could even try removing the panels and taking them home.” His eyes dilate with archaeological greed. I can’t say I blame him.

Then I see what we were looking for. “There’s the storage unit.”

“You know, I don’t think this is just a cargo hold, at least not in the traditional sense. I’m curious as to why so many decorations… I mean this is a long narrative, and for what purpose? A room with a bunch of high-power batteries?”

I can see his point. The contents of the room may be ZPMs to us, but for the ship’s original owners, these items held some kind of special value.

I push a sign next to the door, which quietly slides open. The room is not large, and three of its walls are covered with niches. In total, I count sixteen columns of five shelves each. Our beams of light follow along the rows and, with a few exceptions, all niches hold dark cubic boxes that are about 13 by 13 inches in size.

“The cache is a few boxes short of 80, and I believe each one of them contains a ZPM,” I say. I could be smug about bringing to Earth such an amazing find, but I’m too scared of what this could do.

Daniel’s jaw drops open as his eyes survey the room and he realizes the incalculable amount of power lying dormant in front of him. He reaches above his head for the one box left on top of the first column, carefully detaching it from its niche, to which the box seems to have been somehow connected. They must be powering the ship. He opens it, revealing a faintly glowing device, about 12 inches in length that is ensconced diagonally inside a fitted base. It reminds me of a collection of crystalline cylindrical tubes tied at one end by a flat base.

“It looks differently from the ZPMs I’ve seen and it’s bit shorter, but given that it was made by a different culture... We’ll need to run some tests,” Daniel says putting the cylinder and its box back in their place. He then activates his com unit.

“Odyssey, this is Daniel Jackson. Please respond.”

“Mitchell here, go ahead.”

“We found the sculptural panels. They are incredible. The best stuff I’ve seen in a long time. I’d love to take some home before the ship gets transferred to the engineering department.”

I see a flat surface in a corner, which turns out to be a rolling table. I push it next to the second column and carefully pull the lower two boxes out of their setting and put them on the table.

“Mitchell, there are some smaller artifacts on display that are more portable. We’ll transport them on a kind of rolling table. Just beam us all together.”

“Roger to that. Use the locator beacon.”

“Okay. Stand by.”

Daniel stands next to me, and another box from the second column, and places it on the rolling cart. As he’s about to reach for another box, we hear a soft hum. A soft light comes on, and a bluish energy shield quietly drops from the ceiling, like a translucent curtain enveloping the rows of niches like a tight protective skin. Instinctively, we step back.

Daniel hovers his hand close to the unwavering blue membrane and quickly removes his hand. I look at him. “It feels like high voltage,” he explains.

He picks up his radio once more while I push the rolling table into the hallway, away from any other possible defense mechanisms.

“Odyssey, this is Daniel Jackson.”

“Mitchell here. What’s up?”

“We, er, seem to have triggered some kind of shield when we removed four artifacts from a shelf. We’re okay, but removing anything else is a no-go right now. I’m documenting the carved reliefs next. Stand by.”

“Roger that.”

Daniel takes the video camera out of his pack and I grab his P90 and my flashlight to give him enough light to film all the relief panels lining the corridor.

When we are done, we are transported directly to a small conference room on board the Odyssey. We place the four boxes on the table, where the disconnected security camera lies inside a plastic tray, supposedly broken and waiting for repair. We sit down and wait for Mitchell, who doesn’t take long to arrive. He steps towards the table and opens the boxes. We have four ZPMs, or something very much like them.

“How many more in the old ship?”

“Around 80,” I say and Mitchell whistles at the news. “But there may be more in other parts of the ship. I just don’t know.”

“What about the shield that got triggered?” he asks.

“Some kind of automatic defense mechanism,” proposes Daniel. “Sam should take a look at these ZPMs but we need to come back. If something happens and the ship’s orbit changes, we’d never get a chance like this.”

“Sunshine, this is the easiest sell you’ll ever make, but like General O’Neill said, you’ll have to make your pitch directly to the President. If anyone else gets a whiff of what’s out here, all bets are off.”

All of the sudden, the black boxes looked rather ominous.

We fly back to Melia and deep down I feel blessed that this time I see the brown surface of the planet as a free woman, free from the monster that once held me hostage. We beam down at the edge of the arid plateau that stretches away from the Stargate. Daniel dials home and between the two of us we carry the four boxes back to the SGC, where we take them directly to Daniel’s office. Except for Sergeant Harriman waiting for our arrival in the Control Room, we meet nobody else. It’s the end of the night shift and the skeleton crew is getting free donuts for breakfast in the mess hall.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

2\. Daniel

 

Rodney McKay looks a bit confused standing in the middle of Pueblito’s Simpson Square. He arrived from Atlantis earlier this morning and this is his first visit to our tiny SGC town. With that “give me patience” smile I know so well, Sam Carter grabs him gently by the arm and tries to make him move in the direction of our home, but he just stands there looking around, a bit blinded by the sunlight. Sam has been on Earth while work is done on the ship she commands, _The Hammond._ We all transported together from the SGC to Pueblito through the set of rings in the basement of Thor Hall, the town’s newly named municipal building.

“What’s this place? How come you guys have your very own town? Okay, we do too, but we’re in a different galaxy; and this is really nice!” Rodney says, but gives me little time to explain how Pueblito came to be, interrupting me with more questions and a series of non sequiturs about the names of the streets, which yes, were named after the Simpsons. Not sure Rodney is getting any of the town’s history I’m trying to tell him, but I can’t help but feel proud of our SGC village. To me, the best thing about living here is that we get to have the protective umbrella of the SGC and still be able to lead a reasonably normal home life, just like in most on-base military housing. Thanks to SG1, and many of the special folks who live here, we were able to reclaim what was basically a glorified NID prison for off-world refugees.

Pueblito, 30 minutes by car south east of Colorado Springs, has now become a pleasant gated community that gives an option of affordable housing to SGC personnel. The place has proven to be so popular with our personnel that we may have to expand. Even with the vacant spaces left by the off-world refugees who went home after the Ori defeat, we have a long waiting list.

We cross the square and walk the two short blocks to the house Janet and I call home, while Rodney speaks at break-neck speed about their recent hair-raising encounters with the Wraiths, back in Pegasus. I let him talk and get it all out of his system, because once we get home I’ll need his, and Sam’s, undivided attention.

Our home is spacious, but not grand, and we tend to keep things simple. Janet and Jack are waiting for us, seated on the front steps and enjoying the sunny, late winter afternoon. We take our guests to the library room, and, after handing out cups of coffee, we set up to work. Everyone takes a seat at our long table, empty but for the four black boxes. Jack and I grab two of them, open them, and push them toward Sam and Rodney. Their eyes open wide and so do their mouths, but nothing comes out, until Rodney breaks the dam.

“Is this what I think it is? We need this! I need to take one of these to Atlantis immediately and run some tests. Where did you find them? Why do you have them at home? Shouldn’t they be in a more secure place?” Just as Rodney closes the box and gets ready to make a run for Atlantis, Jack stands next to him, put his hand in his shoulder, and gives him his patented “I can kill you with my bare hands” look. Rodney quickly settles down.

“I know you have questions. So do we,” says Jack. “Everything will be explained, but you need to hear Janet and Daniel first. As to why we’re meeting here, this is probably the most secure room in the whole planet for reasons I don’t need to explain. Only very few people know about these devices,” he says pointing towards the boxes, “and there’re more where we found these.”

“General, do you mean, there’re more? Where, what—?”

“Ahk!!” exclaims Jack, his finger raised towards Rodney.

Rodney raises his hands part in apology and part conceding the floor to Jack.

“Only the President, Colonel Cameron Mitchell, and those of us in this room know about these things, ZPMs, whatever. We must keep all information discussed here tightly controlled. Imagine what could happen if these ZPMs fall in the wrong hands. McKay, can you handle it?”

“Yes, sir, but if I may, please,” Rodney says with his most ingratiating smile. “If this is true, you’ll let me take one to Atlantis, right? We really need a ZPM, or two. Well, maybe more.”

“Of course, McKay. You’ll help your colleagues by helping us. Now, Daniel, do your thing.”

All eyes are on me. I can see Sam is dying to ask, but she’s a good soldier. Without further delay, I turn towards my computer and my small digital projector comes to life, which is a very handy piece of technology for power point presentations, but I digress… An image of the long corridor in the ancient ship flashes on the portable screen. I nod to Janet and she stands up, looking at McKay, who needs the update.

“As you were briefed earlier, almost a year ago, an alternate reality Nirrti crossed over to this reality and was captured by the Tok’ra. I was her host. What you don’t know is that Nirrti came looking for an ancient vessel in this reality because in her own reality the ship had been destroyed in a manner that suggested it had a powerful cargo. She looked in the same area in our reality and found it, still in orbit around a black hole, but at a safe distance. It’s in the Crab Nebula hidden from view by gases and radiation. This is an ancient vessel, in the sense that’s very old, not in relation to the people you call the Alterans. It has a cargo hold with possibly 80 of these devices, but we can’t confirm the number.”

I couldn’t help giving Janet a big grin. She’s done so much good work on herself this last year and she’s able to openly discuss what must be a rather painful episode in her life. I take the report from here, and explain what we found, the shield protecting the boxes and other possible challenges ahead. “For now, we must establish if these are ZPMs and if they are safe to use,” I conclude. “We also need to figure out why that ship is there and why it’s carrying such a cargo.”

“What about the Tok’ra? Do they know anything?” asks Sam and Janet answers.

“I don’t think they know but we can’t be absolutely sure. I didn’t give them any information about this vessel and it seemed untouched since Nirrti was there.”

“We couldn’t get to the vessel until we got the NID out of this town and out of the SGC,” explained Jack. “As you know, the NID is still around so we need to be very careful. Also, we had to make sure we could present this mission under the cover of a combined archaeological and engineering interest.”

“What do you know about the ship?”

“Practically nothing,” he says, while I show an image of the vessel on the screen. “It’s big and looks like a weird-ass fish. It seems very advance d, and is now locked in orbit around a small black hole of around three solar masses with a lovely accretion disk. We need a team of geeks to investigate. The ship, I mean.”

“But Jack—,” I try to complain. I know how the archaeology always gets pushed to the back burner, especially in a case like this.

“I know Daniel. You’ll get your chance too. But while your mission will be in the official log, the task of ZPM retrieval won’t. The fact is, we’re not going back there until we know more about that spaceship. Can you look over the stuff you videoed and report back in a week?”

“I’ll need help,” I say. There is a lot of material.

“Fine. But Daniel, just make sure the information that circulates has nothing about the ZPMs. Carter, what’s your mission status?”

“ _The Hammond_ is in dry dock being fitted with a new Asgard-type engine. Without their direct assistance, things are progressing rather slowly.”

“I miss the little guy,” Jack says, remembering Thor with sad eyes. “I never got to take him fishing. At any rate, Carter and McKay, work on one ZPM at a time and test them. Dr. Lee is setting up a lab in an isolated area of the SGC. We’ll meet back here in one week. And remember, no sharing any information about these ZPMs with anyone by direct order from the top.”

As soon as Jack stops talking Sam and Rodney grab one of the boxes and begin looking at the device and the box itself. Rodney calls Janet over and grills her relentlessly. Janet seems uneasy and looks at Sam, who rolls her eyes. Somehow the small, familiar gesture relaxes her, and she answers their questions.

Jack and I walk to the kitchen to get more coffee and sit down at the breakfast table near the window.

“So, what’s the plan?” I ask.

“If the kids certify these as ZPMs, I’m sending McKay back to Atlantis with one of them to continue testing. We’ll have to come up with an appropriate cover story for him.”

“What about our trip back to the spaceship?”

“Like Mitchell says, we’ll have to bring the band back together. I need those translations pronto.”

“I’ll need Sarah Gardner’s help. She’s the most convenient person since she lives here in Pueblito.”

“Anyone else?”

“Once I have a draft of the text I’ll need Vala to take a look.”

“You trust her, right?”

“I do, Jack. You’re always asking me that.”

“Any other girlfriend?”

“Shut up.”

“You’re so easy.” He raises his eyebrows and gives me an impish smile. We both know we have to work fast. We can’t keep the Odyssey waiting for us much longer.

After Jack, Sam, and Rodney leave carrying the black boxes, Janet closes the front door and turns to me. “How long do you really think you’ll need to interpret the panels?”

“Not sure. A week at least, if I have help and can focus all my time on them.”

“When would you like to start?”

“Actually, right now,” I say pulling Janet towards me and kissing her smiling lips. She wraps her arms around my waist and presses against me, making my pants feel rather tight.

“Don’t you need to get ready for your next meeting?”

“It can wait a bit. First things first,” I say tasting the soft skin of her neck. With a twinkle in her eyes, she grabs me by the hand and we go upstairs. I’d like to think that the cruel teachings of experience have shown me a wiser way of managing my priorities. If anything, I’m a good learner.

 

====

 

During the following days Sarah Gardner comes over to the house to work on the project. All she knows is that we found a spaceship with interesting artwork that shows strong connections to ancient cultures of the Near East, and that depending on what we figure out, an effort might be made to salvage the vessel. The three of us spend time printing out large size images of the ship’s reliefs and gluing them on the hallway, trying to reproduce the order of the panels. We organize the various sections of the texts to be translated and I get to work on them, while Sarah focuses on the images, with Janet assisting her in searching for comparative materials on the internet. We work with the online databases our local library has procured for us, allowing us to consult numerous libraries and collections around the world. What I could’ve done with such access when I was at the Oriental Institute in Chicago!

By the end of the week, a narrative begins to emerge from our combined analysis, a kind of retelling of the Sumero-Akkadian myth of Gilgamesh. I call a meeting at home on Friday morning for the team that’s going back to the ship. They all arrive together.

“This better be good,” Vala says as soon as I open the door, and adds with a sultry voice, “I had the guy right there where I wanted him.” In Vala’s innuendo-talk this means she was gathering useful intel on the Lucian Alliance.

Mitchell, Jack, Sam, and Teal’c all file in and find a place around the table in the library.

“Slide show? It’s gonna be a long one, eh?” says Jack sighting and eyeing the coffee pot and cups on the table.

“Yep. Long story, so bear with me,” I say while everyone automatically reaches for a cup. I should feel offended, but I’m used it by now. Janet turns on the projector and shows the relevant images as I speak next to the screen.

“The text we found in the ship is related to the cuneiform script used in these clay tablets containing the epic poem of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest recorded myths on Earth. There are several versions and variations of the myth, but suffice to say we now think Bilgamesh, as Gilgamesh was originally called in Sumerian, was a member of a group of aliens from a planet called Hurek, which I think is located in a different galaxy.”

Janet shows a map, while I continue. “The Hureks lived among Earth’s humans in the city of Unug, better known as Uruk, in ancient Mesopotamia, now Irak, around 4,500 years ago. They were explorers, and as far as we can tell, they were humanoid.”

The slides change showing the reliefs we got from the ship.

“Apparently, Bilgamesh became involved with the locals in Uruk. He taught them how to build defensive walls and other things, so eventually they proclaimed him king.”

“I guess no prime directive for the Hureks,” says Mitchell.

“Exactly. Things got even dicier when Bilgamesh realized that the local god figure was not human and had been taking advantage of the local folks. So, he banned all forms of indented labor and tributes to the cult Ishtar.”

“I know that bit… uhm uh, well, Quetesh knew her,” says Vala, “She was a Goa’uld queen linked to Ba’al, also known as Inanna, the name of a later host. I can’t say I blame the guy for reacting. She was a crafty piece of work.”

“Exactly, and her loyal priests felt threatened by Bilgamesh,” I continue. “Desperate, they appealed to the Hureks, as they were seen as the King’s extended family. The Hureks sent Enkidu to investigate,” I add while pointing to the screen showing a towering figure holding a lion in his arm.

“Enkidu was an adventurous, nature loving man who had a moderating influence over Bilgamesh, but eventually, Ishtar returned to Uruk. Like Hathor, she first tried to seduce Bilgamesh into becoming her consort, but he declined. She wasn’t happy so she unleashed some kind of beast on him, but he and Enkidu killed it. She tried various things until she eventually captured them, turning Enkidu into a Goa’uld and Bilgamesh into a sarcophagus addict. This would account for the part of the myth that describes Bilgamesh as being obsessed with inmortality ”

“The Nirrti in my reality knew of Enkidu, so I can confirm that part of story,” says Janet.

Jack begins to raise a hand to object to the long history lesson but I cut him off.

“Look, I’m almost done. Let me finish because it gets pretty bad.” I must look pale or something because everyone shuts up and pay attention. “Once Enkidu was implanted, he killed all the Hureks, grabbed their spaceship that was capable of fast intergalactic travel, and went back to planet Hurek. He took along a Jaffa contingent and Ishtar’s children, a vat full of Goa’uld snakes ready for implantation. Her plans to take over the planet by infiltration almost succeeded, which provoked a strong Hurek reaction. They decided the Milky Way was so infested with Goa’uld that the only way to defeat them was all at once.”

Janet changes the slide to a stylized image of the Milky Way, its spiral form disrupted by wavy swirls. Everyone looks at the beautiful Hurek relief and then turn their concerned eyes to me.

“According to the text we found in the Hurek vessel, they sent several spaceships on a sacred mission to purify our galaxy. In other words, they were to create a series of cataclysmic explosions to produce a vast wave of radiation that would’ve killed almost everything.”

“The Jaffa have no memory of such an event,” says Teal’c.

“Neither do the Goa’uld,” says Vala. Janet also shakes her head.

“All I can say is that the plan didn’t work, or–”

“– hasn’t work yet,” says Jack completing my sentence.

“They definitely had enough power to do it,” confirms Sam. “McKay and I tested the devices. They are ZPMs, just a different model. We need to look at the Hurek ship’s logs and be extremely careful. The mechanism could be armed and ready to wipe out all life in the galaxy. Any mistake could set it off.”

“With all those ZPMs on board, the thing could make a hell of an explosion,” adds Mitchell.

“Well, not just that ship. Look at the diagram,” I say pointing my thumb at the screen. “There could be whole network of ships out there loaded with explosives.”

Jack, elbows on the table, takes his head in his hands for a long moment, which is never a good sign.

“Look, we won’t know for sure what’s out there until we get to the Hurek ship,” Jack finally says. “I’ll brief the President and General Landry, so for now the information does not leave this room. Mitchell, is the Odyssey in orbit around Melia?”

“Yes sir.”

“Okay kids, let’s get ready to gate to Melia tomorrow at 0800. The band is getting back together.”

“General, if I may,” says Janet. “You might consider checking to see if the quantum mirror is still in Melia. It’s close to the ship and there may be other Nirrti’s.”

I’m glad she thought of that. In the back of my mind there is always the fear that until most of her body cells regenerate in this reality after a decade or so, any version of Janet that comes through the mirror could send her into an entropic cascade failure forcing her to leave. I don’t want to lose her again.

“You are correct, Janet. That damn mirror needs to be under guard. Daniel, can you and Janet gate there today and help secure the mirror?”  

“Sure. I just need some time to get our research organized for travel,” I say pointing at the piles of books we used to prepare the briefing.

“So, I take it that the Archaeology.com DVD was a bust?”

“Pretty much.”

 

====

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

3.  Janet

 

Boxes with books and other equipment on the F.R.E.D. confirm to all eyes in the gate room that we are going on an archaeological expedition. Daniel, Mitchell, and I arrive on Melia in the middle of the night. We send the F.R.E.D. back and beam up on board long enough to change and get ready to return to the planet to see about the mirror.

It’s cold on the dark, arid surface of the planet. Under the silvery light of a sky filled with stars, I find the way through a rocky canyon, silently approaching the cliff wall where the fortress is situated. Daniel moves quietly behind me, the hood of his dark cape hiding his blondish hair. His glasses are in his pocket and our radios are turned off. We don’t know what we’ll find; more Goa’uld coming through the mirror or Tok’ra keeping an eye on Ba’al’s old hunting grounds, so we are treating this like an undercover mission.

I try not to remember last time I was here but memories flood my mind. I was then host to that monster, Nirrti, and she used the ZPM’s she took to do such horrible things. My stomach lurches sending a wave of nausea up my throat.

“Janet, are you okay?” Daniel murmurs.

“Sometimes I remember how it was to be under her power.”

I turn to look at him, his face framed by the dark cloth. I see the love in his eyes and my bad memories recede.

“We’ll be out of here soon,” he says softly, pushing a lock of hair under my black knit cap. It’s just the two of us under the stars, and I want this moment to be romantic and last forever, but we have a mission to complete and need to get going.

“I’ll be fine,” I say briefly touching his arm. I then walk towards the base of the cliff and begin climbing the rough steps. Eventually, we reach the abandoned fortress where Ba’al hid the quantum mirror I’ve been told he stole from Earth some years back.

The silence is absolute, only broken by our steps as we move inwards by the light of the flashlight beams. I know where I’m going so we soon reach the dungeon-like cell where the device is still standing, its surface completely inert. We no longer have a control for the mirror because the Tok’ra kept it. We know we can’t touch it, since we don’t want to be transported nor attract the attention of whomever may be waiting on the other side.

“It’s safe to touch the base, but not the frame,” I say.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“For now I’ll just put the locator beacon near the base,” Daniel says, turning on his radio. “Planet Base to Bird One, please come in.”

“Bird One here, go ahead.”

“Ready for transport.”

“Wilco in 3, 2, 1...”

In a flash of light, we’re on board the Odyssey, on a loading dock. The mirror stands there, still inactive.

We wait until Mitchell comes over and Daniel quickly grabs his hand in mid air, right as he’s about to touch the frame.

“You know what would really make my day? For Jack to be here when you do these things.”

“Oh. Is it on?”

“Not the point I’m trying to make. It’s always on! The only place that’s safe to touch if you don’t want to become Cronus’s forever guest, is the base away from the mirror. We need to mount this on a solid base, then box it securely, and gate it to the Alpha site.”

“Roger that. We’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you. But Mitchell, don’t underestimate the ability of this mirror to make everything go FUBAR.”

Daniel and I look at each other, not yet ready to take a deep breath. But we know we crossed over one big hurdle in our progress.

 

====

 

We only get a few hours of sleep before we meet General O’Neill, Sam, Teal’c, Mitchell and Vala in the conference room for a short pre-mission brief. Mitchell and Vala will take turns remaining on board the Odyssey monitoring all systems and communication channels for all possible leaks.

While on route to the Crab Nebula, Sam also gives a general briefing to the crew to reassure them that one has to come within a few dozen miles of this black hole to reach its event horizon and feel any kind of extreme gravitation pull or time dilation. To break from orbit we’ll need the same kind of escape velocity as in most solar systems. The main danger is the surrounding radiation from the powerful neutron pulsar star at the center of the nebula and from the heating gases of the hole’s accretion disk, so the shield will need to be up at all times.

As we arrive at the Crab Nebula, most hands are on the observation deck for the spectacular view of the gaseous spongiform tendrils that were left after a massive star went nova. Daniel smiles at me with wonder, the surrounding blue luminosity turning his wide open eyes into turquoise crystals. In a darker bubble towards the porous edge of the nebula, we find the black hole, the surrounding gases slowly wrapping around its tiny dark center. We also take a good look at the Hurek spaceship. It’s large and bluish green in color, streamlined but with a kind of bulbous, muscular quality. The bow section is rounded, the center is long and seems to be divided into three parallel sections with four symmetrical protrusions resembling fins with a flat fan-like stern. The general is right, it looks a bit like the kind of exotic creature that lives in the depths of Earth’s oceans.

The Odyssey assumes an orbit around the black hole near the ancient ship and, after a few minutes, we get the call. SG1 meets in one of the loading bays and we get transported, along with Daniel’s equipment, to the same spot in the Hurek ship where we arrived before.

“Déjà vu,” I say after turning on my flashlight.

“Déjà vu,” Daniel answers turning on his. Everyone else follows suit and we finally get to have a good look at the ship.

“Okay, campers, listen up,” says General O’Neill. “Daniel, I want you to block the entrance to the storage unit with your photo equipment. Nobody gets through those doors until we are ready. The rest of us will do a total survey of the ship. Once we find the command and engineering units, Carter’s engineering team can then beam over and try take control of the ship. Carter, any radiation?”

“Not that I can tell, sir,” she says looking at a small digital tablet.

“Janet, can you tell us what you know about the ship?”

“Yes sir. I haven’t been in the bow section or inside the central core. There are two long corridors either side of the core that reach all the way to the back. The one on the starboard side is where the ZPM storage unit is located.”

“You mean that the port side could have another storage unit with ZPMs?”

“Dunno. It’s possible.”

“Right. Carter, Teal’c, go to the bow and look for the bridge. Vala, you’re with me. Let’s go find us some treasure.”

“General, you and I are gonna get along just fine,” says Vala in her sultry voice, and winks at him.

“Yousureyabetcha.”

Daniel looks at Jack and laughs.

 

====

 

We pile up everything we can against the door of the ZPM storage room and take advantage of this waiting period to produce high quality photographs of everything we can. Daniel pulls the memory card from the camera and puts it in a little pouch attached to his shirt. I don’t want to ask.

We look at the sculptural panels and see if they are detachable. They are. We choose the best one and once we figure how, we easily remove it from the wall and ask Mitchell to beam it over to the Odyssey. We keep going in this manner for a while, removing a dozen panels, until I raise an objection.

“Hon, don’t you think we should check the rest of this ship on the port side?”

“Nope. I want these panels. Things always end up going to hell, ya know? I’m gonna salvage something great this time.”

“Fine. But after we are done, we could go explore the rest of the ship and perhaps save the whole thing.”

“In theory, that sounds great. But that’s not what happens. Trust me, I know.”

I want to roll my eyes but just as I begin to get my facial features ready for maximum smirk effect, our radios crackle.

“Daniel. We have a situation here. We need Janet right away. HURRY!”

“Jack, where are you?”

“Starboard side. Right before the stern section. We found the doomsday device. It’s Sam. Hurry!”

I grab my torchlight, my backpack, and run into the darkness. I know Daniel is running next to me. His legs are longer so I’m soon following him. He makes a point of lighting the way ahead of us. We get to the place where we landed, and take a turn into the long corridor on the port side, until we find Teal’c waiting for us.

“Samantha is in there.”

She’s on the deck, barely breathing. Her pulse is very weak, so I begin CRP measures.

“Daniel. Get us all to the Odyssey. NOW!” I say between breaths.

The general contacts Mitchell and in a few seconds we’re all in the ship’s infirmary, where the doctors take over Sam’s care.

“What happened?” I ask the general.

He takes me to a quiet place and says, “Vala said we found the doomsday device in the stern section, so we called Carter. She was the first one through the door and the thing kinda zapped her.”

I move around him and tell the medical team, “She received some kind of high energy discharge. Don’t let her go into shock. Her sodium level tends to be low.”

I want to take care of Sam. It’s my natural instinct, the way I was trained and practiced for almost two decades. But I can’t. The smell of the infirmary makes me nauseous. Soon enough, Nirrti’s horrific images of tortured bodies take over and I begin to heave. Daniel grabs me in his arms.

“JANET! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!! You can control this. Take a deep breath. BREATHE, dammit!!

I do. I breathe once, and then again, and again. I let out a scream of sheer frustration. I stamp my foot down and decide here and now that I won’t let Nirrti have the rest of my life. I’m a healer. A HEALER. That’s my essence. And Nirrti no longer gets to take that away from me. I find something that I thought was lost and the emotion overwhelms me. I start crying and I can feel arms holding me, a body rocking me back and forth. It feels reassuring and wonderful, but I need to go. I need to mend somebody who needs my help right away. I’m having a breakdown in the middle of a crisis but I’m determined to fight my way back to some semblance of sanity.

“Sweetie, it’s okay. You can let go now.”

Daniel looks at me. His eyes are tearful, but he just wants to know how I am.

“Sam needs my help. I gotta go.”

He kisses my forehead and then I’m on my way. I look at the monitors and begin giving orders and counter orders when the staff argues with me. I work with them, but it’s soon obvious that I’m out of date in my training, yet I know Sam’s body better than anyone, so they work with me to find the best treatment, which soon sets Sam on a course to recovery.

“Thank you everyone. I appreciate your patience. I know I need to get back to med school. I just wanted to help,” I feel I have to say.

“Doctor Fraiser, anything we can do to help you, just let us know. You’re legend with us and we’re happy to have you back among us.”

I nod and walk away. “I shouldn’t have stepped into somebody else’s shoes. I feel like a fraud,” I confess to the members of SG1, waiting in the hallway.

“Janet, please listen to me,” General O’Neill says. He takes me by the hand and we sit down on a bed on the other side of the infirmary.

“I want you to know that we thought Janet was legendary pretty much from the beginning. You saved our sorry asses from Hathor and from us becoming cave folk, so that was it. I’ve had more than my fair share of dealings with clones and what not, and we were all made of the same cloth. What I’m trying to say is that there’s only one Janet, regardless of the reality. Doc, you take all the time you need to figure things out, but you’re a great doctor and the SGC will always be your home when you’re ready.”

I’m speechless. I thought Daniel was just being nice but now the general is telling me all this. What am I doing? “Thanks, General. I know I have some hard thinking ahead of me. I just need time.”

“Fair enough, Doc. Fair enough.”

He’s being calling me Doc and it feels rather wonderful. Daniel steps closer and puts a comforting hand on my shoulder and says to everyone, “We need a meeting.”

The general nods and after taking a quick look at Sam, who is in a deep sleep, we all walk to the conference room. As soon as we close the doors, the discussion begins. All I understand is that whatever is in the stern section is also protected by a strong shield and a discussion follows as to what to do next, ranging from blowing some stuff up to sending over a computer virus. I believe this latter choice is related to a movie, but I’m kind of missing the reference.

We hear a knock on the door, and when I open a nurse steps in and says, “Sirs, General Carter is awake.”

In the infirmary, the general and I stand by Sam’s bed and I grab her hand. She smiles at me and says, “Hey Janet,” but then she remembers and frowns. I know she’s now awake.

“Hi Sam. You’ll be okay. It’ll take around 24 hours for you to feel comfortable and focused enough to get back to the mission. They’ll keep you here to monitor your progress. Is it anything that I can get for you?”

She looks at me with doubtful eyes, but she’s too tired to resist and I take total advantage. I want her back in my life. I know she has resisted me because she missed her own Janet, the one from this reality who was her friend. But we could be friends too. I miss my Sam so much! I take her hand and murmur in her ear, “Go to sleep, and when you wake up I’ll bring you some chocolate, okay?”

She smiles and closes her eyes. I hope chocolate is enough.

 

====


	4. Chapter 4

 

4.  Daniel

 

When Janet walks out the infirmary, we are waiting for her.

“We’re going back to the other ship. Are you coming with us?” I ask her.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” says Jack. “Mitchell, we are ready, please…”

Before that sentence is finished, we are standing in the Hurek vessel.

“Déjà vu,” Janet and I say at the same time.

“Indeed,” adds Teal’c.

“I vote we all keep together this time, one happy dysfunctional family,” says Vala.

“Agreed. Let’s check out the bridge,” orders Jack.

We all pick up our packs where he left them, and then move forward together until we arrive at a circular space in the fore section. The windows are long and narrow but big enough to see the Odyssey on a parallel course at our starboard side, and the black hole on the other side. There are multiple monitors on the walls and flat consoles organized in three rows. Sam’s laptop is on the deck with a coil of some kind of flat connector but it is not attached to anything.

“Samantha Carter was about to link her device to one of the control units,” said Teal’c.

“Let’s leave it there until she gets back,” I say.

Janet takes out a block of post-it-notes she always seem to carry in her pocket, and begins to write labels for the various instruments as I translate them. Vala is doing the same because she can read the language, only a bit more slowly. Soon a basic picture emerges of the command panels. There are sections for internal data and security systems that attract our attention.

“Jack, I found a dial for the energy supply. I think it’s the ship’s lights,” I say studying something that looks like an electrical grid.

“Give it a try.”

Suddenly, a generalized humming is heard, and the lights come on. All the consoles blink a few times and then come to life, which makes it easier to identify what’s what. Next, we look at security. Teal’c comes with me and asks several questions.

“There seems to be different interconnected security systems,” announces Teal’c.

“This console is for weapons. Whatever they are, they are extensive,” says Vala.

“Daniel Jackson, is this screen tracking shielding operations?” asks Teal’c.

Jack looks at the ship’s schematic map and says, “Yeah, it looks like they turn blue at 100%. The whole ship is shielded. Must be some kind of protection against radiation. But look at here and here,” and he points at the ZPM deposit and the entrance to the unfamiliar device we found in the stern, “shields are on maximum. Can we turn them off?”

“I would wait for Sam,” I say. “Remember last time you tried to disarm a bomb?”

“You expect all the wires will be yellow?”

“Oh oh… there is a light flashing over here,” asks Vala, pointing to a console in the weapons area.

“I so don’t want to hear ‘Oh oh.’ That’s never a good thing,” says Jack as everyone rushes to the screen.

“Sierra Golf One Niner, this is Odyssey, do you read?”

“O’Neill here, go ahead Mitchell.”

“Sir, there are some developments with the Hurek ship. It seems to be drawing energy from us and, just a second––“ interrupted Mitchell, but we could see what was happening in the consoles in front of us. “The Hurek vessel has engaged a tractor beam and is pulling us out of orbit. Both ships are moving closer to the black hole. Our shields are beginning to lower.”

“Mitchell, get Carter over here ASAP.”

“But she’s in the infirmary.”

“Mitchell, NOW!”

“Wilco. Stand by, sir.”

Various panels have activated showing the trajectory of the new orbit, a rather fast descent into certain death. Somehow our Asgard-based technology can circumvent whatever the Hureks got, so in a couple of minutes Sam arrives, seated on a wheelchair, holding a saline bag, and a box full of medical supplies.

Janet hurriedly riffles through the meds until she finds a small box. “Sam, this is a mild amphetamine shot to help you focus. We need you 100% alert. You’ll have to take a long rest later to compensate.” Sam nods and Janet disconnects the saline drip, and empties a small syringe into her valve, which she later extracts covering the tiny wound with an adhesive bandage. “Keep pressure on it a bit.”

“Uhm, yeah, what’s going on?” asks Sam.

I push her wheelchair through the various consoles while explaining what we found and what is happening. Sam gets up, tightens her robe’s belt, and walks barefoot to where she left her laptop. She gets busy connecting her computer into the ship’s systems, so Jack wheels the chair over and she sits down distractedly. While she’s typing like mad on her laptop, Janet takes her feet, and puts on the socks and boots that were hanging on the back of the chair. Sam gives her a small smile, and lets her do her doctor thing.

“Daniel, there should be some kind interface to show all the ship’s operations in a large screen.”

Vala and I look around until we find a switch that brings to life a large holographic screen on the fore wall.

“Carter, how long until we get to the event horizon?”

“Not sure, sir. I think at this speed, between 36 to 48 hours, but we’ll get fried by the heating gases and the radiation well before that.” Jack raises his eyebrows but adds nothing more. What is there to say?

“There’s a graphic section on the holo-screen showing the tractor beam. Can you guys make sense of it?” asks Sam.

I get closer to the large screen and study the section showing the two ships moving towards the accretion disk. There must another panel that has this information, so I look around the various consoles until I find the right one. “Sam, the tractor beam controls are here.”

Sam comes to take a look and she asks, “Is there a kill switch?’

“No, more like a knob that turns the level up and down. See? It seems to be combined with some type of radar function, so it’s always on.”

“Let’s turn it down a few notches.” I do as she asks. Suddenly, the tractor beam disengages, and the ship lurches forward. Janet catches Sam before she can fall.

“It seems the Odyssey was resisting the pull and now that we are no longer connected, our forward momentum has increased considerably,” says Sam, but then the ship shakes and she shouts, “We need to find the navigational controls!!”

“Sierra Gulf One Nine, this is Odyssey,” calls Mitchell.

“O’Neill here. What’s your status?”

“We are returning to our previous orbit. Thanks for the assist, General. What’s your status?”

“We’re trying to figure out the controls. We continue on a decaying orbit toward the black hole. Didn’t Thor give us a tractor beam or something like that?”

“Um, no, sir. Apparently the Asgard didn’t watch Star Trek. The engineering crew recommends we do a closer scan of the Hurek ship, sir.”

“Roger that, proceed,” answers Jack with a fleeting smile.

I have been paying attention to the exchange with the Odyssey while we run around trying to locate the navigational console. Things are not where we expect them to be but then we can’t expect people from another galaxy to have the same standards for interfacing with technology as we do. At any rate, that’s neither here nor there, which is literally our problem, so we turn everything on and off trying to see if we find anything. Suddenly a set of flat panels light up in the previously blank bulkhead at the back of the bridge.

“There are controls in that wall?” asks Sam.

“Who knew,” answers Jack.

“That can’t be any good,” I say. I get this heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach and I turn around to look at the holo-screen. “Oh crap!!”

“Odyssey, O’Neill here. Raise your shields 100%!!! NOW!!! You are being fired on. And stop the scans until further notice!!”

“Roger that,” is all we hear, knowing that their hands are full.

In horror, we see that whatever the Hurek vessel has launched is about to reach the Odyssey. It makes a spectacular splash of energy, but it does not penetrate the shield.

Instinctively, I search for Janet, but she’s fine, tending to Sam. Across the room, she looks at me and that’s all the connection and reassurance we need.

“I found it!” shouts Vala, standing next to Teal’c in the back wall. “Look, Muscles, I think I got the navigational controls, but we need to figure out the weapons panel.”

“Yes, no more shooting up our ship!” orders Jack.

Vala keeps cussing and slamming her fingers on various dials on the wall panel, until we can see on the holo-screen that we re slowly changing our own trajectory and moving onto a higher orbit.

“Well, kids, let’s not do that again!” says Jack, adding “Vala, don’t park it too close to the Odyssey.”

Teal’c and I keep looking at the weapons panel that was blinking earlier and try to disarm the system, but we can’t. Teal’c puts all weapons on stand by and selects the longest launching sequence he can find for whatever is launched next, but my guess is that part of the weapon systems may be managed elsewhere. There is a confusing overlapping in the controls that I don’t quite understand.

“Sir, General Carter needs to get back to the infirmary,” says Janet. Sam looks rather tired.

“In a minute, Doc. Carter, what happened here?”

“Sir, I think we have been activating sensitive areas of the ship that are under tighter security. We may have triggered an automatic security system that reads the Odyssey as an enemy vessel. It’s hard to tell whether this ship intended to go through with the black-hole dive or if it was sending the Odyssey down alone. I believe we should understand all these systems better before proceeding with our survey. This is very much like an armed bomb, and is extremely twitchy.”

“I bet the wires are all yellow,” says Jack with a scowl. “Daniel, Vala, and Teal’c, you stay behind and figure out the relevant terminology in these panels. And don’t touch anything!! Carter and Doc, you’re with me. We’re going back to the Odyssey.”

“Just a sec, Jack,” I say before he activates his radio.

I pull a small camera chip from my shirt and give it to Janet. “Please keep it safe. I want to have good photos of all the panels,” I tell her, pressing her hand and looking at her square in the eyes. I know it's a small gesture of goodbye, but she responds in kind, giving me her post-it-notes pad and her pen, and I see all the love in her eyes. Everything else we need to say is already understood.

“Bye Doc,” I tell her. She looks at me, presses her lips, and nods, right before the bright light takes her. Janet is getting back to medicine. I’m happy for her, I truly am, but this opens up a whole other level of worry. I know the road ahead will be far from easy.

My radio crackles.

“Daniel, we made it. Transportation works fine. If anything goes squirrely, you’ll get back here immediately, is that clear?” asks Jack.

“Crystal,” I say.

 

====

 


	5. Chapter 5

5.  Janet

 

After we arrive back to the relative safety of the Odyssey, I roll Sam back to the infirmary. The stimulant I gave her is wearing off and she’s slowly crashing. I help her get back into bed and her saline drip is reconnected along with her meds.

I turn around to talk to her doctor, but Sam holds on to my hand. “Janet, please wait. I just wanted to say… thank you for taking care of me. It felt like old times,” she says, her eyes are all big and blue for a second, until she closes them down for a long moment. Then she looks at me again, waiting for an answer. I know she’s making an effort to reach out. The circumstances of my arrival to this reality were complicated and we were never able to connect.

“You’re welcome,” I say, thinking that I should respond by opening up to her about my own concerns, so I take the plunge. “I know what you mean about old times, but it’s true for me in other ways too. I guess I have some unresolved issues.”

“You do? About what?”

“It’s good feeling like a healer again. But practicing medicine isn’t easy because it can trigger a PTSD reaction. Nirrti screwed me up, you know?”

“I’m sorry. I saw her experiments up close and personal. Is there anything you can do?”

“She was always bad news, but I’m trying behavioral therapy and other things. I just have to be patient and not give up. Well, I hope you can get some sleep now,” I say with a smile to wrap up the conversation. I know Sam has a few ghosts of her own too, but I’m hopeful. We are finally talking like old friends.

 

====

 

After a couple of hours, Daniel, Teal’c and Vala transport back to the Odyssey. Sam is awake and doing reasonably well, with no apparent lingering effects from the shield discharge, so she’s released from the infirmary. General O’Neill decides is time for a team meeting, which we hold while we have our meal. According to the ship’s clock, this is dinner; however, it’s hard to keep track of time in space. It seems like it was a long time ago since we gated back to Melia.

We eat, falling into what I recognize as an easy familiarity between everyone in the room. Soon, I’m part of the banter until eventually we are done eating, so the general gets serious and says, “Okay people, let’s have the update.”

Teal’c, our weapon specialist, speaks first. “O’Neill, we have surveyed all the relevant information on the bridge. The ship’s security features are set up in an automatic mode which, at present, is difficult to bypass. Our best option is to disconnect the shield in the ZPM storage unit and pull all the boxes out. It appears that all systems in the Hurek vessel are powered by these ZPMs, including the engine, all weapons, and what you named the doomsday device.”

The general is about to say something but Daniel takes the lead by raising his index finger and reaching for his backpack. “Jack, please, let me. We also found what I think are technical manuals,” and moving aside some dishes, he puts three large book-like volumes with weird binding on the table. “If some of us work together with Sam, we might be able to figure out the shield and other stuff.”

The room falls silent for a second and then Vala asks, “Once the ship’s power is turned off, its orbit will begin to decay. Then what?”

“We can dock and take the ship with us,” I say. “Nirrti tried to do that, but her transport was too small to tow it.”

“Okay, looks like a full day tomorrow. Daniel, Teal’c and Vala, help Carter look over the manuals. Mitchell, Doc, we’re gonna take a look at that docking port. Now, let’s get some sleep. That’s an order. We'll reconvene for work at 0600,” he says looking at Daniel and then Sam, who nod in acceptance. Putting his hand over the manuals, so neither Daniel nor Sam can grab them, he adds “Good night everyone. And Daniel, the panels you sent over are safely crated, so you can look at those tomorrow too.”

“Jack, you are no fun!”

The general sighs, assuming a well-rehearsed suffering pose.

“Let’s go hon,” I say to Daniel, “maybe I can think of something to help you sleep.”

As we turn to leave I noticed the general smirking.

 

====

 

The next day, while Daniel and the others pore over the manuals in the conference room, I accompany the general to the bridge. Mitchell has commanded the Odyssey into position to examine the docking port, which is in the upper section of the Hurek ship, right above the bridge.

“None of our docking ports or hatches for extra vehicular activities or EVAs match their ports in size,” explains Mitchell. “The engineers recommend the EVA hatch in the lower aft section because it’s structurally strong enough for the tow-link. Also, that section can be kept sealed in case of a catastrophic separation.”

“Catastrophic? I don’t like that word,” says the general. “What kind of connection can we establish between ships?”

“The engineers are working on a flexible tether, sir.”

“You mean, no direct access to the other ship through the port?”

“No sir, and there’s too much radiation out there for EVAs. We have two options: navigate the ship out of here, which would require giving some power to the ship; or extend a tow-line from our ship that can establish a strong enough clasp onto the docking port to drag the ship out.”

“Doc, what do you think?” the general asks me.

“Nirrti had to modify her transport to be able to dock, but a small ship wouldn’t be of any use unless it has a powerful engine.”

“We’ll have to leave the space-tow boat for the SGC’s to-do list. We’ll see if the tether works.”

Satisfied, the general issues an update report to all the crew outlining some of the difficulties lying ahead and the steps being taken before the engineer team can board the Hurek vessel. He never mentions the secret cargo nor the dangerous device in the ancient ship. After Mitchell sets a meeting with the engineering team to get an update on their progress, Vala joins us. Taking us aside, she speaks in a quiet voice, “Sir, I have noticed an unauthorized search of our classified computer files on the Hurek vessel.”

“When?”

“A few minutes ago. Since there is no classified information about the ship in the database, examining our personal computers may be next depending on the seeker’s level of interest.”

“Vala, figure out who is curious enough to breach protocol. Mitchell, there will be no outgoing communications until further notice. Let’s just say communications may be interfering with the other ship. Anyone who disobeys and tries to write home to mom, needs to be escorted discretely to my office or placed on the brig if I’m not available.”

“Yes, sir,” Vala and Mitchell say at the same time.

“I’ll go talk to the others,” adds the general, and I follow after him at a trot.

 

====

 

All our personal laptops are on a credenza against the bulkhead of the conference room that has become our work space. The room is now guarded by three SFs who answer directly to the general. Sam has been methodically checking the equipment.

“I haven’t found any signs of tampering. These computers have powerful firewalls and encryption, so they should be okay,” concludes Sam.

“That’s good to hear, Carter, but we gotta be careful. My spidery senses are buzzing. There’s somebody on board who’s putting two and two together and wants to know more.”

“But that applies to most of the crew. They’re curious about the Hurek vessel. We usually send the engineering team first. Maybe they’re getting restless, sir.”

“Have a talk with the geeks. I want them to think we’re just being cautious before sending them to a ship safe enough to play in and be happy.”

“Sir, I don’t think we’ll be able to save the ship with what we know so far.”

“Carter, I’m beginning to sympathize with the geeks and that’s not a good feeling.”

“Sir, once we remove most of the power sources, the engine will shut off and go into the failsafe, self-destruct mode. If we cut off all power to the stern section first, the self-destruct will not be able to engage. However, we’ll not only lose navigation, but also the ability to shield the ship against the surrounding radiation.”

“How did Nirrti manage with a little cargo ship?” asks the general.

“She only took one ZPM at a time and we got greedy,” says Daniel, raising his eyebrows. “We also need to consider that once the engineers get on board that ship, they’ll identify the ZPM storage unit and the doomsday device.”

“We’ll clear out the ZPM room before I’ll authorize anyone else on board.”

“What about engaging the hyper-drive, as we did with the meteorite that threatened Earth?” asks Teal’c.

“The hyper-drive doesn’t work well in a gaseous environment,” explains Sam. “As to giving the vessel limited power, it will depend on how much we can bypass the self-defense mechanisms. It looks like the only way to get the cargo off the ship is by deactivating all automatic functions.”

“Carter, you’ll figure it out. You always do.”

“Yes, sir,” says Sam, “but the Hurek chose this kind of design for a reason, so all our efforts might not work.”

“Then our priority will be to get as many ZPM’s as possible, but keep trying to find a way to save that ship.”

Everyone nods and the group gets back to work. The examination of the manuals continues for two more days. We scan charts, reconstruct circuits, identify energy flows, and figure out how conduits and panels are connected. I help with what I can, mostly just keeping the information organized and everyone well fed and hydrated.

Sometimes I get restless, so I go for a walk to see more of this miraculous ship, but I always end up in the infirmary. It’s quiet and empty of patients. Nobody here needs my help. So, I turn around and retrace my steps.

After a long, exhausting day Sam declares that she has a sufficient understanding of the mechanics of the Hurek vessel to give it another go, so we prepare for our next excursion set for the following morning.

That night I cuddle with Daniel in the silent darkness of our cabin but sleep proves elusive. I keep turning, seeking that one relaxing position that would allow me to fall asleep, but I can’t really find it.

“What’s wrong?” asks Daniel.

“Nothing.”

“Uh hu.”

I sigh. “I just don’t wanna get into a long conversation because then I won’t sleep at all.”

“How’s that working for you so far?”

“Not well,” I say laughing a bit. “If you must know, I miss working in the infirmary.”

“What would you need to do to be doctor again?”

“Some kind of residency so I can catch up with recent developments, including SGC medicine.”

“Can you handle it?”

“Dunno. It’s still difficult.”

“You could do things at your own pace.”

“Would you mind if I did that?”

“I’d miss not having you around as much, but you gotta do what’s fulfilling for you.”

“What if I can’t get a license to practice? I no longer exist in this reality.”

“Jack can probably help with that.”

“What if…”

“Janet, I know all this makes you anxious but we’ll always figure out a way to help you out, in whatever direction you want to move. There is no pressure, just good opportunities for when you are ready.”

“Thanks. I guess I needed to hear that.”

Daniel spoons behind me, wraps his arm around my waist, and rests his chin on my head, his favorite sleeping position. I guess it’s mine too, because is the last thing I remember that night.

 

====

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

6.  Daniel

 

We go back to the Hurek vessel, but Vala and Mitchell stay behind to monitor possible unauthorized activities. We make our way to the bridge, where Sam begins looking for something on the deck until she finds it. I have spent more time than I ever wanted to translating technical manuals in this distant relative of Sumerian, which has given me an even greater appreciation for Sam’s ability to read technology, no matter what its origins may be.

“Bridge power relay located,” she says after opening a square hatch on the deck.

“Do your thing, Carter,” says Jack looking around the flashing panels. Before he can begin playing with the switches, Sam sticks her hand in the deep niche, and after a long moment all the consoles fall silent and the overhead lights are off.

“Bridge disengaged,” she says.

Turning on the flashlight on his P90, Jack orders, “Let’s move to the stern section.”

With our own flashlights on, we walk on the port side corridor towards the doomsday device. Half-way, Sam looks at the interior bulkhead and finds another hatch, which she opens to reveal a series of cylindrical conduits. With us providing the light, Sam carefully detaches several sections of the translucent tubes, interrupting their flow.

“Janet?”

She takes the tubes from Sam and puts them in a solid container inside her backpack. Soon we find ourselves in front of the room with the doomsday device. There is no humming or lights that indicates this section still has power. Carefully, Teal’c tests the air ahead of him, but there is no shielding of any kind. Nervously, we all step into the room and Sam repeats the same process she did on the bridge, locating and opening a hatch on the deck to turn off the power relays. Once she’s done, a door, previously concealed, appears on the fore wall.

Beyond, we find the engine room, a large dark space. Our flashlights reveal complex tubing on both sides of the large cylindrical casing of the engine in the center, but little else can be seen in the distance. There is a long console nearby. It is not active, but a light suggests it still has power.

Something is happening—I can feel a vibration under my feet--and our radios crackle.

“Sierra Gulf One Niner, this is Odyssey.”

“O’Neill here, go ahead Mitchell.”

“Sir, the Hurek ship has changed direction and is now on a direct course towards the black hole.”

“Copy that. Speed?”

“100 Km/s, sir, but it’s decreasing by 1% of the original speed every minute or so.”

“Mitchell, Carter here. We’ll be okay for a while. Let me know if the rate of decrease changes.”

“Roger that.”

“Carter, what’s going on?”

“Not sure, sir. I didn't expect the ship to slow down. There are built in redundancies in the navigation systems so it can be controlled from the engine room. Daniel, can you help me with this console?”

Sam and I look over the inactive panels as I call out the labels. Sam stops at the end of the console and looks down, locating the power relay niche. We expect she’ll lift the hatch, but instead she turns toward us.

“General, it seems like part of the self-destruct protocol got activated. We have two options: One, we can leave the ship on its present course towards the black hole and proceed to remove almost all the ZPMs from their niches. But if the tow-line doesn’t work and we can’t steer this ship by locally powering the bridge and engineering we’ll probably won’t be able to salvage it. The second option is try to steer the ship back to a safer orbit now, and then remove the ZPMs. We can always transport back to the Odyssey at any time.”

“What are the risks of the second option?”

“The ship could find a way to reroute the power conduits and reactivate everything, including weapons, sir.”

“Sam, how long before we get affected by the heating gases in the accretion disk?” I ask. I’m trying not to think about radiation but I can’t help it, it scares the daylights out of me.

“It’s hard to say. If we slow down too much it could be a problem. As long as we maintain adequate shielding from the Nebula’s radiation, we should be okay for a few weeks, depending on our speed.”

“What happens if the ship slows down?” I ask. Janet stands closer to me and puts her hand on my arm. Somehow, her closeness helps.

“If we lose all speed, we’ll continue on a slow course towards the black hole. We must reach a speed of 127 km/s in order to escape the gravitational pull. At any rate, to turn around, I’ll need access to navigation, which could reboot the whole system,” explains Sam.

“Carter, let’s go with door number one, and see what steering we can regain later. Let’s get those ZPMs ready for transport quickly.”

“Sierra Gulf One Niner, Vala here. There has been an unauthorized use of the transport. I believe, somebody may have transported at the same time you did onto the Hurek vessel.”

“Roger that. Everyone, switch to the next secure frequency.”

We all change the dial in our radios.

“Roger that, sir. Frequency changed and using my personal com,” says Vala.

“Okay kids, we need to speed this up. Vala, you and Mitchell, beam over here and begin to search for any intruders. Leave Colonel Buendía in command. Tell him to switch his radio and give me a report on the tether.”

“Roger that, General.”

“Sir, there should be a door here that opens to the starboard corridor,” says Sam kneeling down to open up the hatch of the power relay. Teal’c and I move towards the bulkhead hidden in the dark and begin to search for the door. Voices carry in this space, so I can hear what goes on behind me as we move past various machinery to locate the bulkhead.

“Sierra Golf One Niner, this is Colonel Buendía, do you read?”

“O’Neill here, go ahead, Colonel.”

“We have two different tethers that are ready for deployment, sir. One has a powerful magnet, and the other one has expandable mechanic hooks.”

“Buendía, we are attempting to cut the ship’s power. Match our velocity but stand by at a safe distance until the ship is deactivated.”

“Roger that. By the way, your speed has decreased to 70 Km/s, sir.”

“Copy that,” says Jack. “Carter, what’s up with the speed?”

“I’m not sure, perhaps—” but she never gets to explain. In a dark corner of the starboard bulkhead, we find the door and I call everyone to our location. We exit onto the corridor near the ZPM storage unit. The equipment Janet and I had set up to protect that compartment has been moved aside so we are not surprised when we see, through the open door, two figures working inside by the light of a portable lantern. Almost half the ZPM boxes have been pulled from the niches and are piled on the floor.

“Gentlemen, do you care to explain why you have gotten yourself a one-way ticket to hell?” asks Jack with a murderous scowl.

The men react quickly, turning around and shooting at us with zat guns, but we swiftly jump out the way and the blue discharges get lost in the hallway. Teal’c, somehow, incomprehensibly, pulls on my pant leg and then pushes me back as he steps through the door raising his right hand. With lethal accuracy he shoots the two men in the head with my Beretta. They are dead before they hit the deck.

“A Jaffa always knows when to use a smaller weapon for maximum efficiency,” Teal’c says with a smug expression as he hands my gun back to me. Sometimes I think that man can move faster than light.

“Well done, Teal’c,” says Jack. “Everyone okay?”

“Sure,” I say, serving the word with a heavy coat of irony. We could’ve shot the wrong thing in here and cause a cataclysmic explosion that took out half the galaxy. But I don’t want to dwell on that, so I add, “Well, at least now we know why we slowed down.”

We stand for a moment thinking about our narrowing options, and I look at the two men lying on an expanding pool of blood. Jack tries to move around them, but it’s hard without stepping on the dark liquid.

“Uhm, Doc, can you do something about this?” he says waving his hand over the red pool.

Janet nods and makes the call, “Colonel Buendía, this is Janet Fraiser, do you read?”

“Buendía here, go ahead doctor.”

“We encountered a non-toxic liquid spill. Please send to our location a box with large absorbent pads, one large trash bag, and two body bags. We’ll explain later.”

“Roger that.”

Mitchell and Vala arrive running at full speed. “Is everyone okay?” asks Mitchell. “We heard shots.”

“Over here,” calls Jack. “Do either of you know these men?” he says while pointing down with his torchlight.

“Yeah, ‘fraid so. They are Ronald and Denton, the new aerospace engineers that transferred from Area 51 a few months ago, sir,” says Mitchell.

“They were working on the tethers. I’d be very careful deploying them,” adds Vala.

“Why are they here?” asks Daniel. “I mean, how could they know about the ZPMs? We played this one really close to our vest.”

“Not sure, but I bet they’re NID and paid somebody a hefty bribe,” responds Vala. “At least, that’s what I’d do.”

Sometimes I’m really glad Vala is on our side.

The supplies arrive in a blinding flash of light, and while we all help bag the bodies and clean the storage unit, Jack calls the Odyssey to order a high level surveillance on all the SFs guarding our conference room and the engineers designing the tethers. The bodies are transported back to a secure location and we resume our work.

“While you count the boxes, I’ll check the power relays on the starboard side,” says Sam and disappears with Teal’c walking behind her.

We pile some of the boxes in the hallway until we can confirm that all the 72 ZPMs are accounted for.

“Shouldn’t we send them back to the Odyssey?” asks Janet.

“Well, dammit to hell!” says Jack banging his fist on the bulkhead.

“Right, Ronald and Denton probably have already passed along the intel about the ZPMs, so the ship is no longer safe,” responds Daniel.

“Can’t we hide the boxes somewhere?” asks Janet.  

We need a practical solution and all of the sudden, everyone is trying to speak at the same time with ideas of what to do next.

“Shuttup everyone!!” Vala shouts until we all listen to her. “If there’s anything I know it’s how to transport and hide cargo without anyone noticing. I’ll need access to the Asgard core to replicate a few props, and Mitchell and Muscles to help to move the boxes.”

Jack gives Vala a long, measured look.

“She can do it,” I tell him.

“Indeed,” adds Teal’c.

Jack agrees and gives the relevant orders to Buendía, who informs us that our speed has stabilized at 50 km/s and the Odyssey is standing by ready for transport.

Sam comes back with what I recognize as her “bad news” look.

“Carter, how many ZPMs do we need to navigate this vessel and reach escape velocity?”

“At least five, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to restore navigation, sir,” she says while looking around inside the storage unit. She locates a backpack in a dark corner, which she opens revealing a handful of translucent tubes. “First, I need to figure out where all these power conduits come from. These men pulled them from somewhere to drop the security shield but I don’t know what else may have been disconnected.”

“Understood. Vala, Mitchell, Teal’c, leave five ZPMs behind and go back to the Odyssey to hide those damn boxes. As soon as you get there, send us a Geiger counter, radiation protection gear, and four pairs of night goggles,” orders Jack. “Carter, take the Doc with you and figure out where the conduits go but keep an eye on this corridor for another possible intruder. Daniel, you’re with me. Let’s do a total sweep to make sure. Everyone, check in every 15 minutes.”

We leave everyone to their tasks, and with a long look back at Janet I follow Jack. We return to the bridge and then move towards to the stern section via the port side corridor. We check in periodically, but we find no one.

“The engine room is a perfect place to hide,” says Jack.

“Sierra Golf One Niner, Odyssey here.”

“Go ahead.”

“Sir, we have begun transporting the boxes. Where would you like the equipment you requested sent?”

“Storage unit.”

“Roger that.”

We have walked in a circle and cross back towards starboard via the engine room, where Sam is waiting for us. She has found no signs of radiation contamination, so Jack and I get our night goggles on and begin to search the engine room. The engine, encased in a long cylinder, runs the length of the central section of the ship. Around it, a variety of machinery and consoles fill the space. We search carefully, walking either side of the engine, but we find nothing. At the forward end of this compartment we find a set of stairs. There is probably a door around here to permit easy access from the bridge, but we are not able to see it.

“Carter, we found an entrance to a lower deck. How’s your progress?”

“We located the power relays and have replaced some conduits and removed others to keep the interruptions symmetrical. There are a few ZPMs left to transport, with the last five remaining on the shelf.”

“Copy that. Carter, contact Colonel Buendía and get the tether line ready to deploy. We’ll proceed below deck.”

“Roger that.”

In silence, we make our way below. There is a long corridor with cabins on both sides, presumably for the crew. They are all empty in that bleak way that suggests they were never occupied.

The last door at the end of the hallway is closed. Carefully, we push it open to find a large stateroom that spans the width of the bow. A large window shows a spectacular view of the slowly rotating accretion disk towards which we fall. The luminescence of the surrounding gaseous clouds lights up the large cabin, so we lower our goggles. There are signs of habitation—furniture and personal objects are clearly visible--but a thin layer of dust covers everything.

In the center, there is a Goa’uld sarcophagus.

“Daniel?”

“It can be bad news or really bad news.”

“Peachy. Shall we open it?”

“Sure,” but I’m far from being sure. This device makes me deeply anxious. I don’t want to think about how much I craved the feeling of being invincible and euphoric, and the ecstatic rush of waking up in the white light feeling the waves of energy coursing through me.

“Buddy, you okay?”

“It’s like it’s calling me.”

“Just remember how utterly miserable it was to get over this thing.”

“Yeah, you are right. But we should consider keeping it. Just don’t ever tell me where it is. So, ready to open the lid?”

“Go ahead,” he says taking a defensive position.

I punch the familiar keys on the golden surface of the sarcophagus, and step back, holding my gun. The lid splits often, revealing a very old bald man inside, wearing a simple white button-less shirt and dark pants. He opens his dark eyes and raises a shaky hand. There are no visible weapons, so I come closer. He speaks in a low, tired voice.

“Silimma hemeen. Mungu Bilgamesh-am. Ngae lugalmen Unug-a istu Hurek. Rabum la alal gistukul abatum. Ngae belu magururnuabzu. Legumen eridu Unug-a sittu.”

“What did he say?” asks Jack.

“Something like, ‘Hello, my name is Bilgamesh. I am King of Unug’—that's what we call Uruk—‘from Hurek. Fear not, the deadly weapon is deactivated and the other ships destroyed. Take me home to Unug to rest.”

“Is this THE Gilgamesh?”

“Apparently.” Part of me is aghast at being in the presence of such an ancient part of Earth’s history, but I’ve seen Ra and Apophis. I’ve spoken to Thor and Loki. Hell, I hosted Merlin and was once ascended. I don’t mean to be jaded but this is one of those things that are both utterly miraculous and part and parcel of everyday life. An old man with a mission, who wants to go home to die.

“I don’t sense a Goa’uld here, but it could be this damn sarcophagus,” says Jack, surprising me because he never admits to perceiving things like that.

“Jack, help me raise him and put him on the divan.”

I take a cloth and quickly dust the seat, and then help the old man get comfortable. Jack finds a blanket inside a cabinet and we drape it over him. After he recovers from the move, we give him some water, introduce ourselves, and then he is ready to talk. He speaks slowly, patiently waiting until I translate for Jack.

Bilgamesh confirms the history we learned from the texts found on the ship, adding that he was sent to our galaxy by his fellow Hureks to expiate for his sins of allowing the wrath of the Goa’uld to fall upon his people and for his shameful dependence on the sarcophagus. His mission was to eliminate all the Goa’uld and the places they ruled but the price of destroying the galaxy had been too high. He loved humans too much. Instead, he had destroyed the other ships sent to obliterate the galaxy and hidden this vessel in the hope of one day returning to Earth for his final rest after the scourge of the Goa’uld died down.

So I give him the news that humans have finally defeated the Goa’uld and that many people had developed far enough to travel the stars. I thank him for saving humanity and for giving us the time to make things right. I also warn him that we must leave the ship because it is out of control. He agrees to come with us if we promise we’ll lay him down to rest in Uruk, which we do. We don’t want to tell him his city is now in ruins.

While Jack catches up with Sam and the rest of the team, I follow Bilgamesh’s instructions and find a coffer with his writings. He asks me to complete them by detailing his last days. In my hands is the original version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which I have been asked to finish. This really gets to me and I can’t help tearing up like a big baby at the overwhelming honor, and the sense that immemorial history has reached through the ages to touch my heart. The old man pats me on the head as I regain my composure. He has a humorous spark on his eyes and I wish I had more time to talk to him.

“Daniel, we gotta go.”

“What about the ship?”

“We’ll see how things go with the tow tether,” he says with a shrug. Then, he picks up his radio, “Carter, do you read? What’s your status?”

“Sir, we have disconnected all systems except the shield. The engine has stopped, so only inertia is carrying us forward. All the available ZPM’s are onboard the Odyssey, and we are gathering the last of our equipment for transport.”

“We found something that we must take back to the ship. Can you meet us here and bring the locator beacon? The stairs to the lower deck are at the fore of the engine room. Go down and you’ll find us at the end of the corridor.”

“Roger that. We’ll be there in 10 minutes, sir.”

While we wait for Janet and Sam, I look around the cabin and find drawers with clothes and I collect them the best I can. On a shelf I see digital tablets and book like objects with oddly placed binding. Jack is putting everything inside a large sheet, to sort out when we get to the Odyssey.

“Jack, what do we do if he goes into withdrawal from the sarcophagus?”

“Let’s ask Janet when she gets here.”

“Right.”

“Can you handle having that thing with us?”

“I guess we’d have to get used to it.”

“Right.” Jack looks at his watch. “They are late,” he says and then pulls his radio. “Carter, report.”

There is no answer.

“Carter, do you read?”

We both look at each other and I see reflected on Jack’s face the same concern I feel.

“Wait here.”

“Jack, don’t ask me that.”

“Fine. Tell Bilbo to be careful.” I groan, by habit, but I no longer argue with his onomastic fetish.

I kneel down next to Bilgamesh and explain that there is danger and to be careful, assuring him that we’ll be back. I close the door behind me and catch up with Jack, who’s been re-checking the crew cabins.

Quietly, we make our way upstairs to the engine room and notice a flicker of light towards the stern. Jack signals me to move to the starboard side of the engine. I know he wants me to find a way to come from a different angle or create a distraction. I move as fast as I can and then I bump into a tube. I use it to climb onto the large cylindrical container that houses the engine and carefully peak over towards the port side.

Below me I see Jack pointing his P90 towards a darkly clad figure that is holding a gun towards Sam. She is on the floor, holding someone. A flashhlight by Sam’s foot moves slightly and I see Janet, her front covered in blood. I wait for her chest to move, for her to breathe, but she remains still. After that, all I remember is seeing red.

 

====


	7. Chapter 7

 

7.  Epilogue. Janet.

 

I wake up slowly. My eyes don’t want to open to the sheer brightness that surrounds me. I cough, but is an unnecessary reaction because my heart and lungs are working properly. Yet, they shouldn’t be. There should be a hole between my fourth and fifth ribs that penetrates my right ventricle, and creates a widening section of lethal damage towards my back that affects muscles, blood vessels and bones. I know what bullets do. My prognosis should be negative. But what if I’m dead? I just didn’t think the afterlife would be so tight. And bright. What is it with these lights?

Wait a second. My eyes open suddenly and I recognize the sarcophagus around me. As I begin to panic, a dark widening gap opens on top of me until I can see Daniel’s pale face hovering over mine. Then I see the general, Sam, and a very old man I haven’t met before.

“Janet, are you okay?” asks me Daniel helping me sit up.

“I guess. Did I..?”

“Yes,” he says hugging me so tightly I can’t breathe.

“Daniel, please!”

“Sorry, I just, you know…”

I kiss him softly on the lips and when I hear the general clearing his throat, I let go. Daniel and I will have to deal with this later.

We all stand closer together next to the sarcophagus, and the general makes the call. “Odyssey, this is Sierra Golf One Niner,” ready for transport.

“Roger that, sir.”

The light deposits us in one of the storage areas of the Odyssey. Two SFs quickly put the sarcophagus on a rolling cart, cover it with a tarp, and disappear as our attention is held by the medical staff who leads us all towards the infirmary. After check ups, Daniel and I leave Bilgamesh resting and head for our cabin.

I enter the cabin and sit on the bed. I notice things are subtly different. There is a long ottoman against the bulkhead, providing a perfectly situated surface for books and equipment, or to seat in front of the windows and look at the spectacular view of the Nebula outside. It’s covered with the same upholstery padding as everything else, but I am very good at estimating measurements. Ten boxes of 13 by 13 inches are hidden inside, which must have been placed in the larger cabins on board Odyssey that happen to be occupied by SG1. Brilliant!

Daniel pays no attention to the new decoration. He grabs my hand and we both head into the shower. With loving care, and a strong undercurrent of anxiety, he takes off my blood drenched BDUs, kissing the healed skin as he uncovers it. This is not so much about sex as a kind of intimate ritual. I know Daniel is still a bit freaked out by my death, probably I’m too, but there is not much I can do other than let him reassure himself that I’m alive and okay. We have an hour before debriefing so our shower is short (as all showers in space are), our lovemaking intense, and our second shower a blur of water, soap, and wet towels.

We meet in a different conference room—we no longer trust the old one—and sit around pretending that Daniel and I don’t have our hair still dripping with water.

“Nice shower?” Vala asks me with a lopsided grin.

“Nice decorating?” I answer.

“Touché.” She looks smug.

Everyone is looking at us if we are talking nonsense, except Mitchell, who is laughing and Teal’c, who is trying not to.

“What?” asks the general.

Vala explains her part but Daniel deflects by asking, “Guys, what about the Hurek vessel?”

Mitchell takes the lead in answering. “It is still on a slow course towards the black hole. We matched velocity but it turned out we won’t be able to deploy the tether.”

“Why?”

“Daniel,” says Sam, “these tethers were not designed to succeed. If we use them, we’d compromise the security of the Odyssey.”

“Why would they sabotage the rescue of a ship that has so much new technology?” I ask.

“A catastrophic tether malfunction would’ve provided a good enough diversion to help Ronald, Denton and Lance, the last one being the guy who attacked us the engine room, with their ZPM cargo,” answers Sam.

“Carter’s word is good enough for me. I’m declaring the tethers unsafe,” the general says and then turns to Vala, “By the way, how would somebody get away with 70 ZPM boxes?”

“Hmmm, I think I’d’ve ditched the boxes, put the ZPMs in more portable bags, and use a couple of F-302 to fly to a nearby gate, probably Melia… or—”

“—steal the Hurek vessel,” says Daniel raising his eyebrows while looking at Vala. I’m sure I’m missing an interesting back story here. Then he adds, “So, what’s gonna happen to the ship?”

“We haven’t been able to navigate that ship other than to return it to its standard orbit,” says Sam. “Bilgamesh must have done everything possible to protect his ship and the galaxy. It’s rigged to fall towards the black hole at the most minimal variation from its programming. I’d have to purge all systems to make navigation work, but the empty shell of the ship would not be of more help than the manuals we already have.”

“Sorry, Daniel, the ship is irretrievable. I’ll be ordering the Odyssey to head home.”

Daniel looked distinctly unhappy.

“Daniel Jackson, is it not true that we already have most of the cargo for which we came?” asks Teal’c.

“Well, yeah. We got all the sculptural panels, the ZPMs, and most importantly, we found Bilgamesh and a cache of his original writings. I just wanted to learn more about the people of Hurek.”

“Daniel, I’m not feeling sorry for you this time,” said the general. “Teal’c, take a couple of SF’s and secure all F302s. I have a couple of people in the brig waiting for a chat with me. Vala, please check the quarters of the three men killed in the Hurek vessel. I want to know for whom they worked. Daniel, check on our guest. He didn’t look too hot last time I saw him.”

Daniel looks pained. As we walk towards the infirmary, Daniel fills me in on what he learned from Bilgamesh.

“So the sarcophagus was his?”

Daniel nodded. “In the Epic of Gilgamesh, he was described as being obsessed with finding a way to become immortal. I guess this is one of those kernels of truths behind the myth.”

I know he does not want to talk about this, but I have to ask. “What happened to me?”

“Lance shot you in the engine room. I killed him and I took you to the deck below to the sarcophagus. I should be sorry I killed a man, but I can’t be.”

“He was armed and dangerous.”

“I know. I’ll be fine,” he assures me, but that remains to be seen.

In the infirmary, Bilgamesh rests comfortably, his dark eyes sparkle when the medical staff fuzz around him. He must have been so lonely in that ship. While Daniel talks to him I take a look at his chart and monitors. His body is decompensating, perhaps as a reaction to the sarcophagus. He is too weak to survive the withdrawal process, so he is given palliative care.

I stand next to the bed and Daniel introduces us. I kiss his wrinkled cheek and he gives me a big smile. I hold his hand in mine while Daniel and Bilgamesh talk quietly. After a while, as his heart slows down, he looks at us, smiles once more, and slips into a quiet sleep from which he never wakes up.

On our way back to Earth, I spend much of the time in the infirmary, not just because I don’t want Bilgamesh to be alone when he dies, but also because I feel this is my place.

Daniel sits with me while he reads the writings by Bilgamesh he found in the Hurek ship.

“What are you reading?” he asks me, pointing at a chart in my computer tablet.

“SGC case files.”

“Why?

“Part of my training. I had a conversation with General O’Neill this morning and we made an agreement. If I’m able to undergo extensive training, and can handle any medical duties, he’ll hire me at SGC. He says they need another doctor.”

“Janet, that’s great news. Are you happy with this? It’s a big change.”

“Yeah. I feel ready and much less scared than I expected. I made the decision to not let Nirrti take my vocation away from me, but I think it was the sarcophagus that helped the most.”

“Really?”

“It healed the chemical imbalance Nirrti inflicted on me, so I no longer feel anxious when I’m here and my PTSD reactions haven’t come back. But we’ll see how it goes.”

“You seem rather happy over here. I think Jack has plans for you, you know? He’s positioning personnel in advance of his retirement,” Daniel says lowering his voice. “He wants Dr. Lam to become the Homeland Security’s version of the Surgeon General, and coordinate all medical research and personnel rotations at all SGC bases, including Area 51, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Atlantis. Landry would head HS and Sam the SGC.”

“Why do you think he’s doing this?”

“He thinks that with Carolyn, Sam and you working together, we might be able to end the NID infiltration of the scientific communities at the SGC and Area 51 that we’ve seen in the last year.”

“Okay, I buy that. But I have a long road to go before I’m ready for this kind of action.”

“I understand, but you know Jack. He thinks strategically.”

“What do you think?”

“I think he has a good plan. I totally dig Dr. Fraiser, and we need her back.”

His faith makes me want to paste the biggest grin on my face. Instead, I give him a quick wink, get very serious and study the files in front of me. What was the name the general used to call me? Ah, yes. I must find my inner Napoleonic power monger.

 

===

 

A few days later, I stand with all the members of SG1 on the Odyssey’s observation deck for the royal funerary ceremony. There are many officials and functionaries attending, including several presidents of the IOA nations. None of them is from the Middle East—and as hard Daniel tried, the IOA decided that maintaining the SGC’s secrecy was more critical than ever. At least one day, it will be known that King Bilgamesh was buried under the ruins of Uruk with all due honors in the name of his adoptive land, and of all humans that he had helped to save.

Under an imposing canopy with flowers and golden trimmings, lies a golden sarcophagus covered completely by the SGC flag and the flag of Irak, since Uruk is now part of that country. It is an austere ceremony, but regal and deeply marked with the wonder of being part of such a long historical arc.

After a few speakers praise Bilgamesh’s history and ultimate sacrifice, Daniel reads a translation of the new ending of the Epic of Gilgamesh, that he completed by royal request:

 

               _King Gilgamesh has laid himself down and will not rise again;_

_The Lord of Uruk will not come again;_

_The Hurek deliverer from death, he will not rise again;_

_He overcame evil, he will not come again;_

_The protector of humanity, he will not rise again;_

_He saved our galaxy, he will not come again;_

_Though he was strong of heart, he will not rise again;_

_He had wisdom and a kind spirit, he will not come again;_

_On the bed of fate he lies, he will not rise again;_

_The Lord of Uruk from Hurek, he will not come again;_

_King Gilgamesh rests deep under Uruk, to be revered forever._

 

Trumpets then announce the departure of the king, and the sarcophagus disappears in a flash of light. The crowd disperses, and Daniel and I are left alone, looking at the planet below as the Odyssey leaves its synchronous orbit above Irak.

Daniel grabs my hand and says, “Janet, if you had died on that ship, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

“I’m here Daniel. Let’s not waste any more time on mourning things that are okay.”

He puts his arm around me, and holds me close for a while. I can’t wait until to be home.

“Daniel?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you remember to take out the trash?”

“Oh no.....”

 

THE END

 


End file.
